Hi everyone! Please kindly give me some feedback on this essay and show me ways to shorten it. Many thanks in advance !!!
Inarguably, being proficient in English is considered one of the hallmarks of a cultured person. Therefore, children increasingly start learning English when they enroll in the kindergarten curriculum. Analyzing both benefits and drawbacks of this trend will be implemented in my essay.
On the one hand, the benefits of exposing children to English at an early age are manifold. One evident benefit is that it enhances the likelihood they will achieve fluency in adulthood. The sooner children start to learn a foreign language, the more progress they will make. Apparently, children aged two to five have fewer workloads than people from other age groups, which means they have much more time to devote to accumulating vocabulary and perfecting critical skills. Furthermore, the majority of young people can assimilate the information they receive effortlessly and subconsciously, which enables them to overcome language learning problems the adults usually experience. For instance, hesitation to speak in English and lack of self-confidence are what deter the adults from reaching speaking proficiency, but are hardly seen in young ones.
On the other hand, there are obvious setbacks children confront at the early process of learning a new language. Firstly, acquiring two languages simultaneously has been proven to temporarily affect children’s knowledge of English vocabulary. More precisely, it can limit the number of words a bilingual child can learn in a period of time, causing them to lag behind in native language compared to their monolingual peers. Secondly, kindergarten is a crucial year for the basics and the foundation of education. There are more important concepts and skills children at their early childhood need to learn such as counting, reading, and writing. Therefore, giving priority to foreign language acquisition at this early age could probably be a waste of time.
In conclusion, despite several disadvantages involved in learning English during early childhood, it is highly recommended that children should be exposed to this language as soon as possible to progress toward English proficiency.
Hi Oneanother, welcome to the forum! This is an excellent essay and I think it would score quite high as long as the conclusion is corrected to match the prompt. I agree it is long, but at 328 words it is not incredibly long. I guess the problem is that you are having trouble writing this much in the allotted 40 minute time? I think the key is to keep your content, which is very good and organized well, and use simpler sentences and phrases. Your main ideas are:
Advantages - Learning English very early makes it more likely to become fluent as an adult.
Kindergartners learn languages more easily because they have more time and their minds are more flexible at this age. Very young children are less conscious and more willing to make the mistakes necessary in learning a new language.
Disadvantages - Learning two languages at such a young age can hinder proficiency in the native language. Other basic skills kindergartners must use learn at this age are more important than English.
So this is pretty short. I think the key to shortening your essay is to make sure to keep the content, but stating it in a more concise, and probably simpler, way.